McFarland School Board Meetings 05/05/25

001want to do music awards. Yeah. Do you know if JD is getting something? I mean obligatory I participated in solo ensemble which for Tuesday June 3. All right. Okay. So, what I'm hearing, she'll send out an invite to us dinner. We're going to call this meeting to order at 66. She'll send out an invite on Monday, May 5th, the year 2025. And I would look for a motion to go into close session. I can make Oh, go ahead. I can make that motion. And I can say that. Do we have to do a roll call first? Um Is it after? You have to do it first. And I think technically when you go into close session, you should say publicly why you're going into close session. I'll take ro. Can we have chairman? Do you

002have the thing in front of me? Um uh yes. We are going into close session to discuss salaries, wages, benefits for support and professional staff. Support. Oh, professional and support staff. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. Roll call. How are we? Yes. Here. Here. Yes. Here. We will see you. Okay. We're in close session at 6:17. Are we going in the room? Yes. In the room. Oh, you guys are going to Yeah. Well, I Well, Oh my god. Are you sure? I think She I don't feel Eric baseball. All right. SP That's right. Thank you for the Thank you foration. You know, colors this morning. Nice. We met No. No way. Congratulations. Way to go. What did you teach? for almost chatted a little bit. most recent just that kind of like it's not assistant

003position but just that kind of like um it's just so fun to be part of the like the ideas you know Yeah, that was in Illinois. That was in California. Weren't you in I was Yeah, we uh we had Gus in California. And then we were like two like we just have to like we were in California for 13 years like the first I was like all right we're not going to stay here because our family's in here and we had and we bought a house and we just and then like two years we weren't even in our house I was teaching and I was like, so we uh and so Chicago was a stepping stone for work. So I got to be I know. You know what's funny though is one of these [Music]

004places I would be like this is so nice. This reminds me of home and they're like this weather. It's so cozy. Yeah, it is kind of funny. I guess whatever you don't have. Yeah, I kind of couldn't remember when things happened as well when like um like the seasons connect to your memories. like something snowy and cold like it was just kind of all the time that it felt like that I lose I felt like I lost track of five or six years I did like when December came started thicker jacket, you know, actually the the houses like they have no insulation and so when it's they're just reference 67. It's so cold in here. Oh my god. I know. Oh, yeah. Please do. I literally I've been studying it for like I looked at

005it for probably like five hours this weekend. This is my jam. Go. Okay. So, we are back in open session at 7:05. Start out with some consent agenda items. Is there anyone on the board that would like to pull out any individual items from the consent agenda? Uh or should we go ahead and uh just approve it? All right. I'd look for a motion to approve the coer the uh consent agenda items. I can do that. Thank you, Bruce. Second. I can second. Thank you, Megan. Chapman. It was Chapman. Okay. Uh, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. 5 Z unanimously. I just want to acknowledge before you continue on, one of the things you just approved in your consent agenda item was a hiring of a new

006administrator and associate principal at Wisa Intermediate School. Leaki is here in the audience today. Let's please extend our gratitude to her. [Applause] We very much look forward to working together. We literally grew our own. It's true. Really? Grow your own. Really? Literally did. Thank you. There are also co-curricular staffing recommendations and professional staffing recommendations. Uh, no vote is necessary. Um, Angie, are there any public comments this evening? We have not received any public comments. Okay. And I did not either. So we will skip through to the McFarland High School student report. There's Hello everyone. Hi. Um we were supposed to have another member join us but she couldn't make it. She was actually a hook squad member. Something came up with her family. So, but she she'll she she'll probably come up next time. Perfect.

007All right. [Music] So, we'll start as we always do. So, what is so McFarland High School student report for May 5th, 2025? So, what's going on in MH at MHS? Some celebratory things that happened. So testing has officially started um from the 5th to the 16th of May. No bells will be ring in MFA High School to not disturb any testing students. Um, we have our DECA ICDC, which is a few of our DECA students went to Disneyland or I think this is Disney World and they went to go just celebrate and compete in events. We also had our accounting competition in WMadison. We had um a few of our students from our accounting classes participate and and participate in this competition uh with analyzing cases of study and a lot of things that they've

008been learning so far. We have our books starting uh accepting submissions. Their posters are hanging all around the school and are accepting all forms of art, photos, paintings, all that kind of stuff just to celebrate the diversity and art and all the arts that we have in our school. Our MMA conferences are said to be are said I heard to be planned and hosted here in Wisconsin and I'm assuming McFern High School. And what do we have coming up? We have a possible culture week hosted by language club this year around May. We're not really confirmed though as we remember from last year that we all it was connect who hosted that where we celebrated all kinds of cultures with different clubs and just bringing it up during speakers and it was it was a

009lot of fun. So it's good to outreach into other clubs hosting it. Prom is also coming up. It'll be hosted on Saturday, May 10th, 2055 from 8 to 11. It'll be at the Wisconsin Masonic Center and it it's everyone's looking forward to it. We have some music the Masonic Center. We have some music concerts coming up. We have the band concert on May 7th, the choir concert on the 14th, and blues in the on the 17th. We also have our as per as usual athletic updates. We have softball, girls lacrosse, boys lacrosse with multiple really nice plays. Uh baseball, girls soccer, and boys golf also were very busy. Uh boys tennis also uh had a nice win over their conference opponent with Stoton. And our ultimate frisbee team had a really good game winning 14

010to 13. And some student staff updates. We just wanted to thank the staff. Happy staff appreciation day. Thank you for everything you do to make our schools and community a better place. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. Any questions? Any comments for the young lady? Well, thanks as always. Job well done and go charge your phone so much. You're at 9% hottie on your cell phone. Thank you. You guys have a wonderful night. Have a great week. Have a good night. Thank you. Bye. Okay. Informational items. We will start with schoolboard notice posting locations. Board policy specifies where the schoolboard agendas shall be posted. Legal counsel has suggested that annually we indicate the locations that these notices are placed. The following is a list of posting locations for 2526 that are required as well

011as a listing of posting locations around the community where we may provide notice when possible. Um, I can go through these. The 25 26 locations where notice is provided as required by policy is the McFarland leader independent, McFarland cable channel, McFarland High School, McFarland School District website, 2526 additional locations where notice may be provided as possible. Village Hall, Ed Lock Library, One Community Bank, McFarland, McFarland House Cafe, Indian Middle School, Wisa Intermediate School, Conrad Elvium Primary School. McFarland School District Municipalities. Uh, and that's it. So, any comments or questions or possible additions or subtractions? Just so that the public knows, they're also posted in electronic communications in several places. I remember when I first joined the board, I thought these are the only places we correct provided it, but no, it's they're posted a lot

012other places. This is just where it's required by policy. Okay. Anything else? No. Okay. Then we will move on to parent guardian satisfaction results. Mr. Tarniter, the floor is yours. Thank you. I am here. You recall at a previous board meeting I shared the results of our student survey that we did with with students in grades 4 through 12. And this is our annual parent guardian survey results. So I will share these with you and we will have time for questions at the end. So uh this was done in March. We had a 20% participation rate which is a little bit lower than last year. I will tell you that my hypothesis is that we've been doing this survey three years in a row and the more you do a survey like this, the response

013rates probably impacted by it. Um, we communicate it with our families both here's a survey coming, but they do receive an individual direct email with multiple reminders as needed. So, some of you have gotten that. Please note that some families choose to have just one family member fill it out and sort of representing their household. That does impact the participation rate um because it is by that's all the people that got it not households. So in terms of this um you can see here in this figure uh the the respondents what I would say is Conrad Elvian Primary School is a little bit over represented if you look at their student population. uh they certainly should should be a smaller percentage of the overall results and the high school should be a higher they have

014four grade levels and uh Conrad LVM has declining enrollment. So a little bit of a skew there a grade level similar um you have kind of an unre under under representation I would say primarily in eighth and 12th grade. So that probably accounts for some of this in in the high school. I wonder if um the 12th grade one is just with people as the students leaving, they don't feel it's as important to give feedback. The eighth grade it is a smaller class. Um seventh grade is a humongous class. Okay. Uh in terms of receiving services, what I would say out of these respondents, I don't know the percentage off the top of my head for advanced learner services, uh people that receive advanced learner services, but it's not 19%. So it's a bit uh

015over represented and our free and reduced price lunch is about 17%. Okay. So that would be under represented. What is a 504 plan? So it uh a 504 is related to uh students that have disabilities but they're not identified through IDA. So they have some impairment. Okay. Through section 504 civil rights act by the district or y by the district. Yep. In collaboration with with the family. So it's like the it's like one level lower of services provided than special education or an IEP. Yeah, it could be. Yeah, that's a way to put it right. Y Yep. So it's it's connected with that certainly, but health plans would fall under 504 plans as well. Um, in terms of race and ethnicity, uh, the big one that I see under represented here is students who identify

016as having, uh, more than one race or ethnicity. Now, that's that's again, we don't know what the families are, but that would I would say in terms of our student population, but it's hard to know. This is I identify as, so I don't know the we don't have demographics on our parent population, but if I look at the student population, So this is our third year doing this survey. I I encourage you to look at the percent who agree or strongly agree with the questions. That's a good indicator. There is comparison data compares to likesized districts in the state and that is useful but I would be cautious about um um over interterpreting those results because sometimes the results are very close together from district to district. So a small change can really make you

017jump up and down in your ranking compared to other districts. So look for patterns. The data is averaged across buildings. There are differences between um buildings, sometimes fairly significant and they do a building level analysis as well with their leadership teams. Overall nearly all the scores increased and the scores are high relative to the scale and comparison districts. uh that's indicating that the things that we're doing are targeted system improvements when you're talking about behavior, bullying, communication are working and should be continued and expanded. It's always nice when you can look at a survey and go, "Okay, what we're doing seems to be like we're on the right track. Keep on that track. Do more of that." And that's what our student survey results uh revealed as well. So, a nice pattern there. I'm going

018to get into these overall um strengths for you. And a lot of the stuff I'll put at the beginning will be a good summary. And there's not much I'll need to say when we get into the individual questions, but I'll address those as well. Um, all four indices increased uh and all were above a four on a fivepoint scale with high comparisons. We'll talk about those a little bit next, what those mean. Most areas we're looking at 80% plus uh in terms of people that agree strongly agree to the positive statements. facilities always a real strength. Uh we have amazing staff and and the students too take care of their spaces. So that's a real high one. Uh you can look at climate uh feeling that their child's treated with dignity and respect. We saw

019a small increase there very high with 95%. Also very high with a child feel safe at school. That's something we take great pride in. Then you have people feeling welcome, that they feel welcome in their child's school, 93%. Of course, with all of these, we'd like to see 100%. You know, uh that's not to say we don't have work to do. In terms of our parent guardian involvement, supporting their child's um learning that they know how to. That's been an area of focus for us. And 91% um is certainly a nice score with that being in the 85th percent uh for comparison. So something to be proud of when you look at having at least one staff member that you feel comfortable contacting uh with an idea or concern. It's 87%. That is not high

020enough. That's certainly something that you'll see in areas of concern that we want to address as well, but but still relatively high percentage. I can't remember. I think it was flat or I would have indicated such surpris um in terms of oop there's a little typo there. Um 88% agree strongly agree that the school provides opportunities for parent involvement. That did have a small small increase but 89th comparison. So feel like we're headed in the right direction there. Discipline. This one is really exciting to see you know the percentage of parents feeling that their child's treated fairly when they break a rule. Um and to see an increase in that and to have the 97th comparison is really nice. student support that their child's getting the support they need with 92% certainly very good and

021a and a significant jump for an already high score there. Communication is an area of focus. You'll hear this both in both areas of strengths and concerns. So saw some some nice increases in this area related to how their child's doing at school communication being timely and transparent and and the percent listening listing the school communication as great are good. So some real high both in terms of overall score and comparisons. That's been a focus in the district uh and and we're proud to see those continue to increase. People feeling satisfied with how much their child has learned this year. very high comparison and also a high high rating. Again, want to see that at 100%. I wanted to highlight here a a real jump. I think it was the largest increase of any area

022which was 4.72 feeling like the district is headed in the right direction. I feel like that may be in part related to the referendum and and the process that was used there. We also had a lot uh the most comments for any one topic were about how caring and skilled our staff are at supporting all learners. So that was a theme from our comments. When you look at overall growth areas, you can see here that that bullying continues to be an area of growth of 85%. Now that did increase significantly. I guess think this was our greatest increase and is in the 92nd percentile. So, but it's not enough to say, "Hey, look, we're better than a lot of other districts and we got a lot better. We still have work to do." And there

023were a lot of comments about uh consistency in in practices and things. So, we really feel like this is our second year of implementing our both our behavior response plan and our our updated bullying prevention and intervention plan. I feel like that that really accounts for those results, the professional development we've been doing. So, we've been increasing over the last two years. So, what we're doing seems to be on the right track. Just more of it, which also connects, I think, to the to the culture. Um, 87% agreeing there's a healthy culture in our school. That's just not not sufficient. We want to see that number get higher and feel like if we keep on the same trajectory we have, you can see these increases over the last two years. That was a big change.

024Yeah. Y both the last two years. Yeah, the last two years as well. Yeah. People having opportunities to give feedback to teachers. That's something we've really focused on providing opportunities for staff or for families to do that both in surveys and also in focus groups. And and you see an increase here, but still still some more work to do to do there. And then lastly, I mentioned communication that 87% not being uh acceptable 68th comparison. And you saw uh these these comments about streamlining and improving communication. And I'm just going to give you a little bit of a caveat. Anything you would do to improve in this area is going to decrease the score for somebody else because everybody wants something different. So some people are like, "Give me one-stop shop to give me everything."

025And then some people are like, "I need to see it in multiple ways so I catch it because I might not see it." And some say I want more information and some say I want less information. So the sweet spot we we're getting pretty close I think to the sweet spot. We could continue to be a little more concise in our newsletters but that has improved dramatically since the survey last year. But that's the answer to your 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It might be impossible. So when we talk about the index, there's there's these index and they're really a snapshot of results that pull together multiple questions into one area on a fivepoint scale with strongly agree being being the five. And you'll see here uh it's a little bit small for you in the

026room, but there's these informed included educational excellence, atmosphere, and then experience uh that cut across. You can see um the increases uh you know range from let's see we had the 0.98 um I guess um for for informed all the way up to the 2.01 for educational excellence in terms of improvement. You can see the comparisons are all very very high in these areas. And that's just something that we I think should take a lot of pride in in that when you pull together multiple questions that there is some uh increase in there. Very very high. So that's something to celebrate. Um in terms of an overall satisfaction, how how likely are you to recommend our school district? And you can see that C that score had had a had an increase from last year

027to this year and fairly high in the comparison, but we'd like to get that higher. 8.19 is still not sufficient. So, these this is kind of just pulling together for a quick snapshot for you of things I've already summarized. You can see that here. These are the top five by average score. So, you've seen these before. It's just kind of nice to know what's the most important. And you can see some of those haven't changed. Uh which is which is positive when you look at the top five by comparison percentile. Similar things uh that you're seeing. And this is where you see um excitement in the communication, the school communication being so high, the breaking the rule being so high compared to our neighbors. So when I say the comparisons don't matter much, you know,

028I wouldn't say that means like 96 out of 100 schools are below us. Um, yes, technically, but just think we're like at the very top of that scale uh relative to to to our neighbors. So comments, we also had a bunch of strengths and um summarizing these um courtesy of our our friends at OpenAI with chat GPT is very helpful because it does pull together things, but talking about our staff and how how caring they are, giving that personalized attention, individualized support, relationships, something to really celebrate among our staff. especially this week, staff appreciation week, that effective and inclusive communication was another common theme in our comments as well as a safe and welcoming and inclusive school environment. So, these were our three top. Um, there's a fourth that comes in real close with another

029about 50 comments about opportunities and family engagement. So, some real great things there. Um, on the other half, on the other half, you see our bottom five scores. Um, I'm just going to say like, and I don't want the public to get the idea that we think that we're good enough because we we don't. So, but to have your lowest, um, score or percent agreeing, disagreeing, you know, down at a 3.93 on that scale and an 85% that's pretty good. And even when you look at the bullying one being our our lowest score, it increased 5%. So it just says we still have work to do, but the we're doing the right work here. Comparison percentile, you see the lowest being that one school staff member um to contact. I you know you know I

030don't know exactly how to increase that. I don't know. Uh, I mean, I I think you feel comfortable when you get to have a conversation with people. That's how you feel comfortable. I don't think getting an email from somebody, you know, in a newsletter once a week is probably enough. So, it could be that that would be something to think about is just positive phone calls or things like that. And then when you go back, what was the last one that was minus24? Is that one staff member? That was weird. And I also I I thought that the school board is doing what it takes. Come on, guys. We got to step our game up. Let's go. Yeah. I mean, I don't feel it's proper for me to address this, but it is is there

031for um I go back to the the bottom one of course like school staff member. I think that question I as a parent read that as like one school staff member who's not my child's teacher. Ah, interesting. And so looking at that data, I think that's interesting that it's maybe a little bit on the lower side because as a parent, do you know like let's say your child doesn't have Yeah. special needs or other things. How much do you interact with non-teer [Music] staff? I don't know. So yeah, could be just that's that's a good interpretation though to know that if you did I'm sure other people you don't know. Yeah, right. It's also a good example too of that one is where you can see what I was saying about the comparison percentile. So

032we're 68% comparison and our score is a 4.17 on a fivepoint scale. So yeah, it's still pretty. Yeah, I mean those those ones that are at the 98th percentile are blown off the charts. Um in terms of our growing areas, the the most of the comments are about communication. We do have a separate section where we ask for feedback about communication. So that's why that number is a little bit skewed I think um on the higher but this idea of these scattered platforms um wanting simplified targeting messaging. So, I think we could be a little more concise for people and saying if you want to know more, click here. You know, a way to go. I don't know. I think that's helpful, but also like as parents are busier and trying to manage all of

033this, like if I don't have it right in front of me, Yeah. am I really going to click here to go search someplace else for the information at my fingertips? And like you said earlier, you're never going to meet 100% of what someone's communication needs or expectations are. Um we kind of talked about like if there's a way like the scattered platforms like as a new parent in the district do you know what platforms are used for what how to access them like all in one encompassing thing you get at the very beginning might be helpful. I think there's things kind of in the works for that. That's one of the things we're working on. It's hard to know what you don't know. And I want to get I want to get it every way.

034I want emails. I want letters. I want Facebook posts. I want it all. Airplanes. Yeah. A lot of people do. Yep. If we could start a Tik Tok, that would be awesome. See that a little bit. Okay. Um so then moving on if it still exists. So um and then you had some uh curriculum academic standards some ideas about kind of the grading practices continues to be an area of growth. We actually have a a meeting on that tomorrow. Um so that certainly is something more consistency I think is is the focus on some of these comments increasing our rigor. You know some people feel like our kids need to be challenged a little bit more. Um, and some feel like there should be, you know, more focus on retaining our high quality teachers. You

035also have some behavior, which I mentioned earlier a little bit with the inconsistency, people feeling like addressing behavior, you know, kind of my kid comes home and he tells me about how other kids act kind of a thing. Those were some of the comments. Getting into the item analysis, I'm going to go through this pretty quick since a lot of these were summarized in the beginning. And that was sort of the the way I kind of set this up was so that you would get an overall theme. Um so this should be very redundant to you um in terms of these areas. So you can see some of these recurring things that we've talked about. Uh that's that rating the communications. As I mentioned, I summarized that with the 41 and the 47 together. So,

036real high rating. This is one you haven't seen. So, this is kind of interesting. That was fascinating. 95% Y emails. Fascinating. Um, and then we also had people talking about texts. And so, the challenge with text messages, of course, is that if you overwhelm people with text messages, they might stop looking at them. We currently only use them for emergencies. So whether cancell cancellations, a safety incident that requires immediate attention. So attendance. Attendance. You do get a your child's marked absence. Lunch balances. Lunch balances. Yeah. I get mine. Mine says your child is negative. That's me. Yeah. But yeah. So, that's something I think we could think about. Um, I just want us to be cautious about that. I think that could be a slippery slope. Close to the sweet spot right now. I'm I

037am surprised by the emails. Yeah. And it's been consistent. Yeah. The last two years. Yeah. It's just surprising to me because when I talk to people, they say, "Oh, I just lost the email or I didn't see it or I'm never like my email is overwhelming." So, but that's good. I mean, y it gives us what we the data we want to know. I do think that the more that we can be and I'm not saying we're not doing this, but the more that we can be consistent in what we put in the subject. Yes. So that people can make a choice to know like is this worth it? Oh, this is also interesting because it was about a 20% response rate. Yes. And all of the surveys are sent via email. That's true. Yeah,

038that's that's a good observation. Are we actually going to capture the people who aren't wanting emails, right? That's a good point. That's a good really that's a really good point. Our whole administrative team has no one has brought that up. Professor, it could be. Yeah, it could be a little skewed. Yep. Anyway, I think we're doing honestly our committee, our administrative team felt like let's not over interpret communication cuz you will just end up wishing you were doing what you're doing. Sure. School experience. We've seen these. I've talked about all of these uh to you. So, you've seen all those. It's just kind of nice to see. And you can see those big jumps. Same with this slide. that updating on how their child's doing at school is one that we take a lot of

039pride in. So really impressive, our teachers are working really hard, especially in those that are using uh Canvas and Seesaw to keep people informed, more on school experience, opportunities for parent involvement certainly very important. Love that. Feeling safe at school, knowing how to support your child. Again, that's our teachers have been doing a great job with that. And then finishing off this section with feeling welcome at your child's school and other things, you know, uh homework, kind of an interesting one there. And you know, 69% feeling just right and then 11 too much, 11 too little, and nine are like That's really interesting. Um, yeah. So, I have to say as an administrative team when we talked about this, we said that's probably about as good as that one might get. True. Because being able

040to differentiate to the point that you all of them say just right. That's a level of differentiation. I don't I don't know that. I mean, we would like to get to it, but how realistic is it that in a classroom of, you know, 20ome kids, you're gonna have the homework amount just right? I think one of the things we've done is that we do provide more clarity in homework for kids and what they're supposed to do, the purpose of it. I'm hoping so. My before we move on from that one, I was curious um we ask a similar or same question in the student survey. Does anyone remember off the top of their head what the students thought about this? No, that's very admirable that you'd think that. Um that's a great question. We could

041do that. We I think high schoolers said they got too much. No, I'm kidding. It was an average. They were stressed. I remember high schoolers were stressed. High schoolers were stressed. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Good question. Yeah, we should look at that. Let's let's do that. Let's compare that participation in activities. Um, you see that, you know, been a consistent high percentage. I think that's amazing. Yeah. Like that just Oh, maybe a big smile. Like that's that our kids want to stay at school. Yep. And do things with their peers. That's true. Don't we have in the neighborhood of 30 or so clubs? Yeah. That's at the high school. at the high school. Yeah. But that's always been our that's remarkable. Yeah. I think we have like 60 clubs between the two. Access to internet

042outside of school 99%. Some don't know. That's that. Other questions, thoughts? The only question is from I just wish we could get more people to take it. I don't know how you do that. Well, maybe we send a text the next time. We could, you know, I mean, really and truly, or check your email for the survey, you know, we we honestly could. Yeah. You know, because then it might capture some of those folks. It just helps us, Yeah. I think it also kind of even I mean, we had to cancel the CPS carnival carnival like because of lack of volunteers. Like I think there's a little bit of a trend of I want to be engaged but I either don't have the time or it's not a priority for me this week or whatever

043it may be. It's not that you don't want to participate. It's this is a bad time of year or I don't know. I mean it could be a thing but that is kind of nationwide. Yeah. Like it's the engagement. Well, and it's interesting you bring that up because we actually talked about in the schoolboard meeting right before it that the carnival needed volunteers. I had no idea that they needed volunteers and I talked with a lot of fellow parents and they were like we we had no clue. My audience too. Yeah. Yeah. Engaging community volunteers has been a focus. I don't I don't know that volunteerism is stressed as much these days as maybe it used to simply because people feel like everybody's so busy. Yeah. You know, there's just so much going on and

044it's the majority of, you know, two income households. There's all kinds of things that you could probably justify not volunteering for something easier now than before. Sure. It's true. So that's all I have for that. Any other questions or comments? I think it's very positive from my view. The one more to go. The staff survey results. Okay. Get those at a future board meeting. That's great. All right. So, business and education partnership meeting update. Mr. Tarnitzer and Ms. Chapman, please. I'll I'll take it over. I got all the notes. Um, so I will apologize. I was a little late to the meeting because I had a work issue. So, if I have some holes, I'm turning it over to you. I'll fill you in. Um, so for those of you not familiar with the business

045and education partnership, uh, it is truly bringing together the McFarland Chamber of Commerce and then the school district, which I think is pretty fantastic. Um, so first we had a wonderful DECA update. We met our new representatives for the BEP um committee next year. We have Eli Frankie and Jonathan Terrell. Uh so they've been handed over the reign, so to speak. So we're excited to have them. Then we got a great rundown of all the community events that DECA has done for us over the last month or so. So we had the get ready with royalty, the big little dance, um we had some raffle events, then we had the annual Dans and Homes Easter egg hunt. um followed by the DECA chords and letters which I'm unfortunately not horribly familiar with. Aaron, did they

046touch upon that much? No, the chords and letters. Okay. Um but then they also talked about fundraising they did for the ICDC international competition. So then looking at the competitions for SCDC um which is the state DECA competition, we had seven qualifiers for the international competition in uh Orlando. We had eight medalists in their event and then we had one $500 scholarship which is pretty awesome. Then ICDC was uh at the end of April. 13 uh kids attended. We saw all the fun pictures. There was a leadership conference obviously the competition and they had a ton of fun at Disney. So that was pretty fun. Um so kudos to them for going out there and having a great time. So then chatting about Skills USA. Um they do have uh numerous competitions that follow very

047much the normal trajectory. So they had their district competition in Oregon, regionals in Platville, and then the state competition which was two weeks ago. Um Erin, did they talk too much about the competition because that was the part that I missed. Okay. Um Skills USA is a wonderful organization. Um for those of you not familiar, are familiar with Skills USA? So essentially it's um really focusing on the trades and so um high school students even you know college students they can come together and there are numerous facets of competitions they can do it's woodworking cabinet making welding um and it's just a really great way for them to hone their skills in a competitive setting. So, uh, for those and it's like on demand. It's like like they get stuff, do this, go. Like they

048walk in blind, they say, "Here's a plan, go." Like one of those shows. Yeah. Like reality. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, if you if you ever want to check it out, I highly recommend it. I've seen the state competition and it is so cool and it's amazing to see what these kids can do. I mean, I am not good when it comes to anything construction oriented and it was very motivating for me to go want to hang out at Home Depot a little bit more. Anyway, um so then looking more into the uh BEP events, we have been doing the student employee excellence recognizing students that have been nominated by their employees. So, thus far this year, we've had Tyler Brockoff, Aubrey Burr, Kendall Reman, Trent Brummer, Addie Worth, and then there is a May

049recipient, which I will not uh mention who they are because it's a surprise. Uh we also had that career expo where we had um approximately 30 businesses and organizations staged throughout the high school so that way uh students can meet them. And then we also did reality zone. Uh some great feedback we got from actually the DECA students who are meeting in our meeting. They said, "We never realized how expensive daycare and insurance was. A homeowner medical insurance renders insurance. Absolutely get it." So it's really nice that they're truly seeing what adulthood is like before they walk across that stage at graduation. So then looking towards end of the year, we have our senior exit interviews and resume reviewing. It's going to be on Thursday, May 22nd and Friday, May 23rd. If you have any

050interest, they are still looking for some volunteers. Um, I know I'm going to be doing some senior exit interviews. I think you are too. Um, so it's super fun. Yeah, I can send it over to you. Um, and then obviously resume reviewing. Super important for our seniors to get some professional feedback because it truly is selling yourself on a piece of paper. So then looking towards IMMS, they had their real world day on Thursday uh May 1st and they had professionals from over 12 different career paths available um that morning. And what's interesting is that kids were literally placed into various groups. So they had an arborist, they had a veterinarian, they had a firefighter, they had a hair stylist, they had a realer, they had a banker. Um, so just a really nice variety

051for kids to see like, hey, this is something that I could get into and just learning more about their careers. And then, uh, we chat a little bit about the mentor program that we have going on. So, the mentor program is really there to provide a support system for students who are not engaged uh, in their education to really help promote their strengths and also help them, you know, develop some of their weaknesses, look at their opportunities, things of that nature. So if people are interested in being a mentor, uh I believe there is a link on the Indian Mound page from the main school district website. So then fundraising, obviously, uh we know that schools always need some more help financially. So a couple of ways that the district is looking at fundraising. Um

052first and foremost, they are trying to develop a system for actual donations. So once we have that information, we obviously will share it with everyone. but they're looking at putting announcement screens throughout the building. Um, working with Spartan Cafe, doing a collaboration between the CTE courses and special ed. They're also looking at changing some of our branding. Uh, continuing the paint job in the high school that started in the front entrance cafeteria area. Uh, IMMS is looking at getting web shirts for the eighth graders, I believe, to help the incoming sixth graders because going to IMMS from Obisa can be a little overwhelming. And then, uh, the ski and snowboard club is looking to do some fundraising at IMS as well. So, then just a couple of chamber events that are going on. May 13th,

053we have the annual golf outing. Uh, May 15th, we have the multi-chamber mega mixer, which I really don't know anything about, but it sounds like fun. Uh then we have bands by the boardwalk starting again. So June 12th, July 10th, August 14th, September 11th. And then one last thing that we all were kind of chatting about was a possible career fair um for high school students where we would invite local businesses in to actually interview kids on the spot um especially when it comes to summer employment. So that's just a couple of things we're chatting about and overall that is the BEP notes. Well done. Any questions? Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. District administrator's report, Mr. Tarnet, I'm going to start off uh with a an update on our strategic plan. So, I

054do have a handout for you, which you have seen already. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. So, get to that microphone. Yeah. Trying to stay on schedule here, people. All right. So, what we do twice a year is update you on the strategic plan. This past year, what we had was our school improvement plans really became ended up becoming a strategic plan update. So, this is two and a half, year two and a half of the strategic plan. So, let me just pull this up for y'all. I think this will be the one to share with you. Yeah, I think that's okay. Um it's kind of small for the audience, but you have the copy in front of you. And so just to give you a little bit of a background, so this strategic

055plan, it's a five-year plan, and it came together when um it was uh in the fall of 2022. The board adopted it in December. We started sharing it more so in the winter and spring and try to keep it out. You know, we've got signage. We're reminding people about the strategic plan. What really makes this come alive though is we have an action plan. So there's a one-year each year our administrative team comes together with one year report cards that we use to guide our work. So we list under each of these pillars and objectives, we have individual things that we're hoping to accomplish within the year. And then we measure our progress in addition to tasks completed is what is the impact of those and we use that through our key performance indicators our

056KPIs which we'll be talking about a little uh later. A lot of those rely on the survey results that we've been sharing with you. So I shared all of this stuff public. Okay. move on to pillar number one, educational excellence. And when you look at um where we're at for this year, so again, this is the way that that this works is a little different is it's not a school year objective, it's a calendar year objective. Whoa, that's weird for school districts. So, this is why we're two and a half years. Um, overall we're we're moving on to this this this progress because we're halfway through 2025ish sort of for your purposes accept that. So, what we're looking to do in this area is really identify and define the short list of kind of our

057high leverage strategies to impact all instruction across the district. And we call that kind of our tier one Specifically, we're focusing on uh English language arts and students with individualized educational plans or students with disabilities. That's where our greatest gap is and you'll see that in our KPIs when we finish. So, part of that is about providing professional development for our staff in these areas. And also we're looking at implementing long range um professional development related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in that in that plan for our students. So what you'll see us doing is incorporating those together. So they're not separate. We don't look at our work with inclusion as being separate from increasing. Obviously, you can see our greatest gap is student with disabilities. So those two things go together. They're not

058they're not separate. So in our progress uh we have a district uh equitable multi-level systems of support team that meets actually met um tonight or this afternoon and what they're doing is they're they're looking at what are those high lever strategies and they've actually identified a high lever strategy of explicit instruction being very clear and specific with our students about what they're learning why they're learning it. And so that's the going to be the focus of our professional development moving forward next year. Uh, another thing that we're doing is just really celebrating and learning from one another through collaborative classroom visits, also known as CCVs. So it's really a peer observation where teachers go into other teachers classrooms and and learn from their expertise and get some new ideas. We have amazing educators here and

059they often don't get a chance to learn from one another in and see it modeled for them. So that'll be our our our focus. So we've done that with building leadership teams and expanding that to to all staff moving forward. Um we do have a um diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging plan, but we want to have a clear scope and sequence for that that work in our district. So getting it a little more defined. So that's our focus in that pillar. Moving on to family and community engagement. This is really about increasing opportunities um to keep our staff or excuse me our families and community engaged and doing that through multiple strategies. So, we've done some things in terms of what we were just talking about earlier with communication about some more training for families

060on how to use the tools. There's been drop in things, things sent out. That's certainly something we can expand on. We created an electronic community newsletter that we're sending out about every other month that has district updates to engage our community. and we're looking to find ways to engage volunteers more often. And what we I think we find and I think the the carnival uh would be a good example of this is we do tend to rely on the same people a lot. And so how do you engage, you know, community members and things and volunteer opportunities. So those two kind of go together, the community newsletter, but also updating our website moving forward um to doing that. But we did we've identified some strategies to do that. So that's been some progress there. And

061then continuing uh with gathering feedback from our families. I mentioned that we've had some focus groups on different topics such as you know conferences or new families. The middle school did a new family focus group on what was helpful to you. wanting to expand those and and of course our professional development offerings about, you know, viewing families as having assets and and how to really engage in strength-based work with our families. So, we're going to continue to do that. Make sure our families that need translation services need to know how to access those. I think that's something that there'll be a growing need for in the future. Um having clear goals by building for how to increase the number of volunteers because the strategies are a little different or what you need from volunteers is

062a little different from from school to school and developmentally a new welcome guide for families that that's clear for them on how to how to navigate the school especially since we have such a high retention for our our students. You know, they tend to stay here once you get here. So, when you're a new family, that can be pretty intimidating. And then continuing those focus groups. I think that's something we're wanting to continue to do. And we want to make it relevant, not just a focus group just to check your box. And of course, at the bottom, I didn't mention this earlier, but you can see what we did last year as well, just for your reference. Moving on to exceptional staff. Of course, we have them and we want to keep them. So, that

063really is the focus. Um, one of the things that our staff um appreciate is the opportunity to work together and collaborate and wanting those teams to be as effective as possible. One of our objectives there is is an inclusive work environment that fosters open communication, collaboration, growth. So, do that through our teams. So putting together a plan to really build on best practices and collaborative work that's something we've kind of identified a process to do that and teams will be moving forward they'll be self assessing their progress uh and their functioning as a team and so uh the next thing is about what are the best practices in recruitment and retention to uh bring our staff along. I think we've done some great things with the standard hiring process for professional staff and expanding that

064to our support staff is the next staff step. We still have a lot of job descriptions to continue to update um to better reflect what our our staff are doing. Um and and that's a way that we can effectively recruit people. People look at your job descriptions and want to know what's expected. And then lastly is resource allocation. So resource allocation really is about, you know, being fiscally and environmentally responsible with the taxpayer money and and also our diversity, equity, inclusion efforts, which again have kind of migrated up to our educational excellence as being part of our standard operating procedure. So it's really about long range plans. So we were able to as you know um develop a health insurance plan with significant cost savings to the district while providing a high quality service. We're

065also have to improve some safety systems through analysis of cyber security, heating and cooling things like the times of when things turn on and off and and studying that you you're aware of the the hazardous walk areas um which is something that we've also assessed. And then moving forward, obviously we we have systems that we need to continue to keep updated and effective with a with a long um range plans in all of those systems areas. As well as, you know, addressing our compensation needs. That's the biggest thing ahead of us, I think. And then just making sure we have funding for so we don't need to go back to a referendum. Very cool. Uh lastly, I'll touch on the KPIs and then we can take your questions. So when you look at the key

066performance indicators that are included here, what you can see here in the top is our our group our biggest area of concern I think in our view is using a standardized assessment because that's the most that's the thing that's readily available to compare our students. Uh in this case, it's typically the forward exam or the ACT used to compare our students. And you can see that yes, we showed nice growth in English language arts for our students from 52% proficient to 63. Still not high enough. But the the thing that's concerning us the most, I think, is our gaps. So our gaps between different subgroups, especially that 38% gap between students with and without disabilities. that's the one that we're really working on um addressing as well as students are economically disadvantaged and sometimes those

067go together and so um you know it really impacts our kids and so that's where you saw that in educational excellence um our strategies about let's make sure all of our kids are getting access to high quality instruction because you can't um intervention your way out of decreasing that gap. That's too high of a difference. It has to be something kids, all kids are getting every day because you can't pull kids out, you know, constantly to close that gap. So, um our students, you know, uh we don't have a student survey. We didn't um have a baseline um until last year. So, now we have that comparison. So, we saw a small increase there in our our connection index. So that's nice for our family and community engagement. You can see some, you know, fairly

068stable, some nice growth certainly over time in the the survey results for informed and included. So that's how we measure that. If our parents are saying that they feel informed and feel included, that means they're likely engaged. We don't have a good measure for our community involvement. There's just not a good way to quantify that at this point. exceptional staff. You can see um the check-in survey. We we'll be talking about these results a little bit later. A slight decrease over last year in these areas um but certainly over where we were in 2022 and 23 uh for engagement and staff experience and our retention rate remains very high in the mid 90s. And then there's really not a great way to mention or measure resource allocation besides having a balanced budget which we're working

069on. That last page that you'll see this is just shows you when you have an index um what questions comprise those in case you were like well how do you come up with it? What is the student connection index mean and how do you measure it? Those are the questions that attribute to those. Mhm. So that's what I was wanting to share with you. What questions, thoughts, comments, wisdom do you have to share with me? Well, between that and the um other survey results you presented, it's we are definitely what we're doing is working and that is really as a schoolboard member who's trying to look at the top down view that feels like the most important. I think so too. However, I think maybe not enough people know this stuff. Maybe we don't market

070it quite enough. You know, let people know how about our successes, too. Yeah. It's interesting you bring that up because recently I started seeing commercials from other school districts talking about how amazing their schools are. Um, and I think we kind of live in this happy little bubble of McFarland's amazing and we know it's amazing, but you know, but obviously advertising is very expensive as well. So, it is interesting though to see that I had never seen before the last couple years. Yeah. Like districts are now starting to market themselves more. Is that marketing um targeted towards like students and families or staff? Students and families. The ones I've seen are interesting. It's actually the one I'm talking about. Suck. Interesting. I don't think I have either. But I'm just happy that we're just now

071just getting we have these surveys. We have the strategic plan. I mean, in many cases, and Darren, you and I talked about it. I mean, these just didn't even exist in our district. And so I think we'll keep getting better, but over time you have that longitudinal comparison that uh is going to be very valuable. We got all the baselines we need, I think, now to Yeah. move forward. That's exactly right, Craig. See if we're growing or Yeah. And we needed to do that. Now, you know, Yeah. Anybody else? I think one thing I'll comment on is under the family community. Um, at the survey piece, I think the principles are doing a really good job of asking for input and then in weekly newsletters in communication back to families saying, you told us this,

072we did XYZ because of that information. And I think that only grows engagement and encouragement of we're listening y and we're actively changing something based on the feedback and not just oh status quo status quo we're doing we're doing great by the numbers but you know don't have room for improvement. So I think they're doing a really good job wonderful. Anyone else recognitions? All right. So, the rest of my report, the usual, right? Um, give some some shoutouts here. Want to really thank um uh two of our outstanding educators here, uh, Miss Brazzle and Miss Mleier, for their leadership with the equity picnic that just happened. uh we had about 40 students, middle and high school students participate in a morning of really working together to to think about how they can make a bigger

073difference in their school. So this is totally studentled. So the adults kind of organize in terms of making sure everybody's where they need to be and that they have a plan and then the students lead it. So mixing up groups of kids and um talking about you know representation and what are our values and what are some things we can do to make our schools better and more equitable. So very positive. That's the second time that we've done that. So thank you to both of them for organizing it and our student leaders and the students that participated. Uh we also had the musical uh lightning thief. So that was just so much fun. Yeah, you can't go wrong with Percy Jackson. It was a it was a family hit for those that were there. Really

074great show. Justing really powerful. Um so thanks to them. Well, we had the high school solo and ensemble as you know. So exciting event and so many participants. A lot of pride in our music program. Mhm. Fifth grade art and music show which I didn't uh get to see in the I didn't go to the vocal showcase. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. I don't remember what I had. I had a conflict that night, but yeah, I've heard great things. I still I still haven't been. There are a ton of talented kids out there. I mean, it's amazing what they can do. Well, and it's fun because the vocal showcase highlights the McFarland ac cappella groups and then often right after and this year it was just two days later is the um Mad City Summit.

075Oh yeah. I don't know. But it's a capella from all the surrounding schools. Do you know where that is? It's always in Oregon. Yeah. Nate Mendel who used to be here started it and I think it started here and then he went over to Oregon. So what was the date? Oregon. I'm sorry. Of what of the event? I think it's Mad City Summit. Okay. I can't find out. Yeah, it's but it was just this last Friday. Um, but yeah, it's just and and then you can see kind of our talented singers next to all the other schools and I mean everyone is talented, but I have to say that McFarland is just so good. That's been They're so good and it's studentled and teacher le all of that has been outstanding. Yeah. So if you

076haven't gone, I I recommend. Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing how they do that when it's so busy. Such a busy time of the year. There's so much going on. So busy. A shout out for Real World Day at the middle school. I was able to spend some time over there. One of my favorite events in the district. I'm just a little biased, but um it's just such a great thing. I mean, they had I made a list because I I knew I wouldn't remember, but some of the things that they had. So, reminder, right? Each grade level has a set of presenters that they go and see and learn about their careers. Um and and the vast majority are local community members, but certainly local businesses. And um you had banking, a hair stylist who

077was actually doing someone's hair while they were presenting. That was really fun. Um didn't do mine. um scientist uh didn't offer in fact scientists, engineers, firefighters, photographers, zoological educators and arborists, gym owners, nurses, uh former student by the way, um dog boarding, local uh business panel that included our very own um MRAP, uh Alicia Fix, school to career student panel, high school student panel, and uh drivers ed. So just some of the things and there were more that I didn't share. So just a real variety of great ideas and great careers many of which uh you know do need and don't need a four-year education. So that's exciting. So that's a ton of organization and well done. Thank you to everybody. And um a shout out to everyone involved in planning the professional development we

078had on Friday, especially our building uh leaders, Melissa Fo. There was uh a focus on relationships with the well-being for all work uh talking about using technology to review student progress, content teams meeting and collaborating together. real focus on literacy whether it was discipline literacy 612 or early literacy in the early grades then we had curriculum councils so that K12 groups getting together by content areas happened again is this is this the first or second is that the second year that we've gone back to using this is the first year of bringing back curriculum councils okay y yeah so they used to be in the district years and years ago and and brought it back. Um, and oh, another thing I didn't recognize was um we had a couple other events. We had u principles

079day. Oh, we're going to have a slideshow about that. Um, we also had uh the academic scholars event that was held in Wanaki. So the sort of the top 10 uh for lack of a better phrase of our senior class were recognized. So very fun event followed by desserts which uh Megan can verify I successfully resisted. You did. You did. Nice job. I did not. I hate his. Some didn't. Some didn't. So I was able to chat with the Fesler family. Congratul Congratulations to JD and and the other honores. It was really really neat event cuz it's all the Badger Conference. So you get to see a lot of students. So yeah, it's a it's a fun event. And then going into the photos, we got a homemade guitar here right in art class after

080my own heart there with his his own I don't know how many strings there are. I love the shoes. Are awesome. Yeah, three. There you go. Even better. Yeah. Uh you also have the knitting club that's happening during their kind of their spotlight knitting choice time. Yeah. Hard. It is hard to knit. What a cool skill for our kids to have. Right. Right there. Here's the equity picnic. You can see that shot of everyone. Great event. Yeah, the high school connect club is just amazing. It's great having the different grades. It's so good for all of those kids. It is uh the field trip that the African-American studies and the Black Student Union went to the Milton House Museum. Talking about the Underground Railroad. It's where I went to college. Everyone should go there. It

081is. It's beautiful. So cool. Yeah. And it's so close. Yeah. My goodness. They're so good at their field trips. Here's the Hooper Hooper boot camp. I don't know why I want to say it that way, but yeah. Just see the kids. All the hands-on stuff. Look at them. They're just loving it. Man, we have such amazing kids looking at careers there. Madison College uh came and visited and getting seniors. Nice. all registered up here. You had the the first forensics accounting competition. Wow. Wow. Look at there. Students all dressed up. Yeah. Accounting, right? Thanks for keeping it down, audience. All they up and coming in and excitement. Yeah. Um here you have our our prom court, which we talked about a little bit ago. So, yeah. real soft spot cuz for whatever reason I can

082just picture them as sixth graders really well. That is right in my head. So I'm getting getting pretty sappy in these days. So really nice kids. So they're all juniors. Yes. Yep. School lunch hero day. Um yeah, it was on the second which is kind of interesting. That was a day off. Um Oh yeah, for them. So, congratulations. Uh, but we have our school nutrition staff are outstanding. I love how you started with smiles. Yeah. Kindness and nutritious meals. Yeah. Got to start with the smile first. Bonus. And they do. That makes the food taste better. It does. Yeah. And it's contagious that interaction that they have. I I I won't tell stories about the old days, but our kids are much much more respectful and well behaved in in the breakfast and lunch in

083the cafeteria than they were when I started here. So, they do a great job, manners and all, but it's because that staff, you know, shows them respect. It's really outstanding. And the quality of our food, unmatched. There's our principles. Woohoo. School principal day. Bravo. Yeah. Unfortunately, I was able to talk to several of them that day and not uh always about the most exciting things, but I said, "Oh, hey, happy principal day." Happy Principal Day. Yeah. But we're really fortunate. Rockstar team. Wouldn't trade him. Uh here's a guy here's a guy Smith was in Cambridge for the uh educator recruitment fair and just had a blast. They're the Blue Jays. There were so many people uh so many prospective educators and many of them did apply for have applied for positions there. So I met

084a lot of good people thanks to Angie for her help. Melissa was with me. Um and I would just say that you look at that setup we have come a long way. Yeah. in terms of I mean I I think our communications department is unmatched. I compare them to any communications department in McFarland School District history. And you had swag. You had swag. We did. We did. Was a decent. Should we give a shout out? Well, look at we got sunnies. We should We should give a We got pens. As long as you have something to give away. And I'm the swag queen. Like you did the sunglasses. That's where it's at. the sunglasses. That's fine. If you need a pair, they're they are they do work well. I have one of the a pair

085in my car. Um and then the the little squishy balls with poppets. They're really nice. Yeah, they're really they're really nice. But I would say um you know, thanks to Angie for both the banner and the beautiful tablecloth. Those are those are hot tickets. Yeah, I can remember us looking at the mockups for the that banner and going, I don't know. I don't want this. I only have one chance at a first impression. Yep. Nice work, Angie. Um, and oh, National Physical Education Week. And I will tell you, if you ever have a chance to see one of our physical education classes, it is so amazing. The students really try. And it's not just younger kids, middle and high school kids really give it their best. I tried to get in there the other day,

086but they had all the doors locked. They were doing archery. Oh, cool. That's a good reason to lock the door. Not to have open access the doors. We eighth grader today was saying they're doing hurdles. Hurdles. Yes. Cuz getting ready for the track meet. Yeah, they do. So, if you don't know, um they do grade level track meets at the middle school. They had one last week during the during the school day as part of physical education. Yeah, they call that. Do they give a special name? No. Grade level track. Okay. I mean, let's do that though. Okay. Yes. And first graders just finished their swim, their two weeks of swim. Yeah. I know. It's so great that they can do. See, I'm so glad you have little people. Yeah, because you can fill us

087in on everything. Exactly. Like we've got high school cover. Do they walk back and forth? Do they walk back and forth? Usually. Yeah, I think they one day weigh in and I think they're able to bust the Yeah, but it's so cute. Very exciting. I do have to say that the my youngest has come home a couple of times or actually not even waiting to come home, but like they do something in FID and then he texts me and I would like to do this now. Oh, okay. We'll try we'll try we'll try to go find you some lacrosse stuff to get into or you know like some total stuff that we would not have exposed him to right in our family life. So, it's cool. Awesome. And then of course it is um teacher

088but staff appreciation week. So we recognize our staff for the amazing people that we are. We they are we are very lucky to have them. And so, thank you to the board for for being willing to recognize them and support them through the McFarland House Cafe. And the principles are really knocking it out of the park this year is what we heard. Really? So, yeah. Excellent. All right, staff, go get your stuff. That's right. Go get caffeinated. We want to give you as much energy in these last few weeks as possible. Oh, and our coal winners. Look at these. A record five winners in a year. That's awesome. compare with other schools because I'm just amazed at how many Well, we're the best. Um I don't know. That's It seems like it's high. I don't

089remember. Suck had a lot. I mean, every year I percentage though. Yeah. Right. Percentage of Yeah, we've got to be high. I'd say yeah, we're definitely in the 96th percentile. That's just just a rough and this time it went up by at least percent. Yeah. So, thank you to the Cole Foundation for their continued support of of educators. Amazing. Well, congratulations. Yeah. So, those that's what I had to share with you. Um coming up and then you can share some stuff. Um coming up of course May that's the month we're in is AsianAmerican Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month. And um you know we are here and while we are here the high school music awards are going on. So um missing out on that. And then honestly the next couple weeks

090are crazy busy. If I read everything be here till midnight. But good stuff. So busy. Anything you all want to share? Um just one thing I want to bring up. Um, the Greater Dayne County School Governance Consortion Community Forum is Wednesday night. Yeah. From 6:00 to 7:30 at Middleton High School. Our illustrious superintendent is on the panel. Yeah. But we've got some uh local representatives, some senators, uh obviously a couple of superintendents. I I'll be attending. Um so I'll be more than happy to give you all a recap. Yeah. Above and beyond. Yeah, I'm excited. There's a lot of legislators there. There are. It's a seven. That's the number that's in my head. Um, it's seven or nine. It's not eight. Oh, see eight. And then three uh superintendents. Nice. Yes. And that's Wednesday at

091Middleton. Yep. From 6:00 to 7:30. Yep. We'll be talking about school funding, the lack thereof. Yes. Because it's a big old mess. Yeah, it is a big old mess. Maybe they'll fix everything. If those people could, they would, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's true. Um, I would like to lift up, we kind of talked about it earlier, but the hiring of the AP position. Um, just want to lift up our one, the staff who covered those duties over this last school year, who are still covering those duties. um that we knew when we approved that decision it was going to be really tough and so thank you for sticking with us and then lifting up our administrators Jeff and Aaron for the budgeting finding solutions to bring that position back um

092while still remaining fiscally responsible. So appreciate that. Excellent. Yes. Yeah, Dr. Hower has knocked it out of the park and and the additional work for for principal Nelson and and principal chef Chuck as well among many others. Right. The list goes on and lots of people. It was definitely a team effort. Courtney Brazzle and Darien Rigggins and Angie Brunette and all the teachers and just talking with folks, they're just they're happy about choice. Okay. Okay. Anything else? Not for me. If not, our first action item is action on the 2025 2026 school board meeting dates. Don't we have the business manager manager report? No. No, I don't think so. No, it's on. Oh, it's on it under a report. It is under I don't Okay. I don't I don't see it, but that's fine. Oh,

093maybe it's in the minutes, but not in the in the Yeah, in our It's not on board book. Oh, okay. Or in the notice. Okay. Look at that. We just gained 10 minutes. That was an easy one. Motion uh to accept the school board meeting dates as presented. I move to approve the 202526 school board meeting dates as proposed. Thank you, Megan. Chapman, do I have a second? I'll second. There we go. She's on the books. Um, okay. All those is there any other further discussion? I would like to just say thank you to as part of our planning sessions and to Angie and Aaron to actually get all of the kind of those well they're not random but now that we have a process for it but like the all of the extra ones

094that we do in our work sessions on there ahead of time is going to be amazing. I was going to say I don't recall seeing this last year. We didn't do that. We just keep getting better. Thank you for sending that out. Yep. So, thank you that it's um Thank you for making that a part of the regular rotation and otherwise it's mostly the first and third, right? Yes. Mondays. Yep. Anything else? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I I opposed. Motion carries unanimously. 5-0. Next is action on summer 2025 extended contracts. Let's see. Each summer staff with unique roles are provided compensation to complete summer work in addition to their existing school year contracts. Their proposal for this year includes a reduction of 135 hours due to the budget

095deficit. If you are in agreement with these recommendations, summer curriculum hours, the following motion, I would look for a motion to be made. I can do that. I move to approve the summer 2025 extended contracts as recommended by administration. Thank you, Bruce. Do I have a second? Fesler can second. Fler second. Any other discussion? just to give you a sense of when you look at the names that probably means less to you but there's kind of some groups I would say in in summer hours. So a large group is is student services. So student services is um welcoming new students throughout the summer and that's the biggest part of what that is is reviewing IEPs and all that kind of work that they do throughout the summer and different project work. You also have our

096instructional leaders that are working with staff on um different projects. And then you have some sort of summer u maintenance for lack of a better word, but like with our technology and engineering departments, our teched departments, they're doing some, you know, maintenance on their machinery um that they use in their in their unique spaces. So that's really where it comes from. And that reduction of 135 hours was was difficult. Uh but we felt like when you're making hard decisions about what to provide your kids instructionally during the school year, um you have to air on the side of putting the money there when you can. And it's unfortunate that was valuable time that we're losing, but felt like that was the fiscally responsive many thing to do. Don't offer summer school, at least not to

097the degree that we have in the past. So I I suspect it'll still be and just to clarify like this is summer our like not working with kids. Yeah. It's just not to confuse them. Anything else? Do we have a way to like if you see a reduction in hours, do we have a way to review that next year to determine if that reduction met with kind of like deficit for our kids. Like if there's something that they were working on that then we cannot we didn't do it or didn't happen. Is there a way to track or monitor that at all? There's not a great way to you know quantitatively review that because it's hard to know. Yeah, it's hard to isolate it right for for review. But we certainly will be able to

098speak to it anecdotally in terms of their we've also reduced our summer curriculum work for staff. Okay. As well and that comes out of the department of teaching and learning budget. So that's not something the board approves. That happens through um the budgeting process through that department. So that is correlated with this as well. there's fewer teachers getting paid to do curriculum work over the summer and so there's fewer people working with them to do that work. So both are unfortunate and really not in the best interest of anyone except for our budget. That's correct. Just to be honest, these are the hard decisions. I can't there are going to be a lot of hard decisions going forward. Y but thank you. Any other discussion? That's a good question. If not, all those uh in

099favor, please signify by saying I. I I opposed. Motion carries. 50. Unanimous. Uh next action on the 2025 to 66.0301 girls hockey co-op addendum. Uh administration recommends approval of the amendment to the 20 2025 202276.0 0301 girls hockey agreement describing how additional cost will be paid if you are in agreement with this proposal. I would look for a motion to approve. I move to approve the addendum to the 2025266.0301 girls hockey amendment agreement as recommended by administration. Thank you, Megan. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you. Yes, you know, I can just go by Chapman from now on. Let's forget the Megan. It's fine. Okay. Any discussion? Yeah, I um I think does anyone recall in the original version how the additional expenses were handled? Just to clarify for our own budgeting purposes,

100I think it was previously covered by the skaters or the families. Yeah, I think this this is now don't quote me on it, but my recollection is this is adding that up to, you know, 2,000 will be covered by the boosters. Adding that part in. So, it doesn't really impact our financial bottom line. No. Yeah. And it's all it's all by the the skaters either way, right? Okay. Anything else? Yep. Yep. If not, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. 5-0. Next. Action to change the name of Conrad Elbium Primary School to McFarland Primary School. During the previous board meeting, some board members recommended the board consider renaming the Conrad Albium Primary School to McFarland Primary School. If a board member wishes to change the name as suggested, the

101following motion would be in in order. I would look for a motion to approve. I would like to do that. Thank you, Bruce. Change the name of Conor Primary School to McFarland Primary School. Thank you, Bruce. Do I have a second? Chapman seconds. Okay, discussion. Yeah, I this is one that I've been really thinking a lot as you know. I I really wanted to keep Connor Delvium involved and again luckily the the uh the committee the village committee that looked at you know the whole process and the the situation um want to keep his name somewhere involved and I was wondering um I don't know how we would do this and I'm not sure it's appropriate so stop me if not but I'm wondering if we could get a group of McFarland historians I'm I

102actually reached out, but I didn't reach um Angie Bazan today. Um I didn't think it was appropriate to really talk to her much about this, but um I'm going to mention it now. I was hoping I really talked to her today before I mention her name, but she grew up in McFarland. She she's a member of the social studies team. Um I would actually really enjoy being involved in this as a former social studies teacher here for 37 years. um and trying to see if we could figure a way that we could honor him, kind of keeping his name somehow. Well, it won't be a part of the school. We've already decided that, but at least keep him present. And again, I look at it as an educational opportunity for really our whole community. And

103I just think it would be kind of nice if it could come from within McFarland itself. So, I don't I don't know what that means. And obviously I can't do anything or we couldn't do anything without your approval. I think I think uh the committee wanted that to happen as well. Clear what what they said. I don't I don't know whether it's going to be a museum quality display somewhere. But I think I think most agree that we should do something to honor Yeah. Well, he is a McFarland the McFarland born. And the fact is I thought if you got the teachers involved um it would lend itself to I mean I guess Erin you mentioned getting this involved in the curriculum or something like that. I just think it would just naturally arise out

104of that and then I think we've done what we really want to do. I I can't think of a reason you couldn't do that. I I I'm looking at your eyes. Yeah. So a couple things. So, so there's kind of three things to consider. The first is the name of the school. Yeah. Right. And that's what you're taking action on tonight. Another is how do you recognize Conrad Elvium? And so our curriculum councils were working on uh that topic uh last week. And then there was also emails going out today about how can we recognize how do we already recognize Conrad Elvium in our curriculum and how can we recognize him moving forward? um specifically I think science being a clear reference but also when we talk about McFarland and the history of McFarland and

105also when we talk about housing discrimination and so um we're we will have that done you know that's moving forward with our staff so then it becomes recognizing him in another way engaging the community as Bruce is suggesting which um uh can definitely be done it doesn't require board action it's not uh committee of the board. It is it is just something that the board would be, you know, saying this is important. And then lastly, you know, of course, is the cost of anything. So, renaming a school has a cost. Um if there's going to be some sort of formal recognition of Conrad Elbium, um whether it is in the school or in the community, that has a cost, too. And so that is in the context of renaming something the board's going to need

106to provide some direction on in terms of how to pay for that. And that was part of my whole thinking is those three things. The best way to do it. I don't I I'm pleased to to say I don't think there's has been at least much uh as much controversy as afraid there might be. But the point is, I think if we have local people finding a solution to this, it would be easier to reach out to the community that help pay for it to also make sure that it's it's in the uh the educational in the curriculum. And what's the third one? Um that you you mentioned the three different Well, it's renaming, recognizing him. We've done that. So yeah, I just think in some ways it would be the most healthy way to

107do it. And I guess I would envision that if if a a group of people and as I said I enjoy being part of it. Um I think it would be fun for the group and I can't speak for it because there's no such thing but it would be kind of neat to actually make a presentation to the board and say this is what what we came up with. At least that's what I would suggest. They may have. So if you don't mind I would like to look into that. Certainly. Anything else? So, question and since I'm new, that could just be the way we go about the process of meetings. Um, we did get some additional idea um from one of the CPS teachers and for it being Marshwood Primary School um to kind

108of align a little bit with W and I am a mess and kind of that naming nature um giving homage to where we live um and where our kids go to school. So I I guess I am saying that as a that I I like that idea, but I don't not like McFarland Primary School either. I think um it kind of caps the experience. You start at McFarland Primary School, you McFarland High School, right? Um there's some I don't know, there's full circle there. like the book end aspect, you know, like it's um so I just saying I appreciated um the thoughtfulness of um another suggestion that has nothing to do with someone's name um and has everything to do with where we are. So I just throwing that out there as I appreciated that

109um idea just for a historical perspective. Yeah, we had also couple years ago probably gotten a letter signed by 20 or 25 folks looking to name to rename Indian Mount as well. Interesting. Okay. I Good to know. And we we went to the Ho Chunk Nation and and did our due diligence and it did not appear to be offensive to the Ho Chunk people. Okay. But it was at one time. Yeah. They thought that was somehow an offensive thing just for perspective. You don't know. Don't know. Thank you. I also liked the suggestion. Um and appreciate that was I think that was the only feedback we received. Yep. That I saw. Yeah. Besides that, the community member that I spoke with um and shared that with you that was supporting McFarland Primary School and felt

110like that was um a good way to sort of recognize the history of of the building. And um and and then today I had a staff member say email me and say McFarland Primary School, a CPS staff member that they thought that it should be named McFarland Primary School. Okay. Well, plus just saying MPS, it just rolls off the True. Anything else? If not, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I I I I rolled everything over here that I just said in the last 15 seconds and I think I messed up. Can we just have a revote because I'm not sure everybody Yeah. And before we do, Megan Chapman, you ended up seconding. Yes. Correct. I want make sure I get that correct. Yeah. All right. I wasn't clear on that. Okay.

111C can you just call for the vote again? Sure. Just want to make sure. Absolutely. Hearing no further discussion, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion passes unanimously. 5-0 and McFarland Primary School. It is. Any thoughts on how to pay for it? Are welcome. We'll get back to you on that. Yeah, we'll have to discuss that. We're and and I would I would next somewhere between 15 and $20,000. Was it 15 to 20 or 10 to 15? It was 10 to 15. 10 to 15. But let's you know, let's be let's be realistic. Yeah. Can Can our next can our next step be gathering an official quote? Well, they're really where would you go for it? Um, we could gather a quotes on certain things like signage. I mean, that's

112the most expensive part of that. The rebranding of a school, a lot of that we'll do internally. Sure. So, it's just staff time taken away from other responsibilities. Is it something where some of Yeah. kind of offset the labor cost. Okay. Yeah, we can definitely do that. We can definitely do that, but we do need to talk about signage. That's the most expensive thing. So, bring it back to the board. Yeah. I guess that's always where I start is it'd be tough to put a timeline on something like that. I mean, you you don't even know what you'd be asking to have quoted. Yeah. You'll get we'll get there, though. I think taking the letters off the building, it's, you know, adding new letters. It's you know, new signage. I I've talked to some I

113think we can do it and I think we can do it in a way that's going to be very not sure that's the right word. Well, good. Okay. Next is election of officers. So, I will begin as the president. my presiding officer. So, um the terms are one year. We accept nominations for officers beginning with president and each office thereafter. So, I would like to start little out of the ordinary, but um this will be for the election of president. Uh I've been extremely proud and honored to uh for the last 15 years on the board, the last four or five as president. Um but uh given this sort of uncertainty in the you know public education landscape these days, uh I think this is this is pretty much the perfect time um for a

114change in leadership. Uh it's my feeling that Megan Fesler is exactly who we need to lead the district moving forward. Uh going through COVID and the period between the lost referendum and the winning referendum showed me that uh I just don't have the energy to do it anymore. That those were ridiculously hard times. Mhm. Um, so I would like to nominate Megan Festler for president. Thank you. I think I now have to accept nomination. So I will happily accept that. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none. Congratulations, Megan. Yeah, we need a second. I'll second. I do the second. Okay. Any other discussion? Yeah. I just want to thank you 15 years. And I'll be honest with you, Craig, as a person who taught in this district since 1976. I would argue that

115that period where you were, you know, in charge as president was some of the most difficult that this district's ever seen. And we just really needed someone to kind of calm the waters and get us through. It wasn't as fun as some of the other stuff. No, I don't know. It was never fun. You didn't do it because you wanted to have fun. Let's face it. No, that's true. You you did an awful lot and I just want to thank you. I appreciate it, but it's it's time. Well, and I also want to say thank you for your vote of confidence in me. Um, sharing your gratitude and your leadership and and your willing willingness to provide mentorship over the next year for me. Um, and literally and figuratively, I have very large shoes to

116fill. So, nice. So, thank you. Shoe guy. I was going to say the shoe game. I know. Maybe some Hawaiian shirts. Megan Fest. I will just tell you that. I think it's very very qualified. And if you don't mind, I'm just going to say that, you know, Megan Chapman in the last couple like month and a half, I'm going like, wow, I think you have what it takes. And then just kind of bringing you on board, Meredith, that I'm going like, man, we've got some good folks here. So, anyway, I'm really happy. We have a great opportunity and this is a this is going to be a challenge. Um, but I certainly believe Megan's up for it and I'll be around for a year. So, well, that's one of the wonderful things. It is really

117wonderful that you can actually kind of help her with any questions that you know she may have. I hope to. Yeah. Making them awful happy that you'll be able to give your son. That will be that will be a perk. That is true. Okay. Then, uh, did you have a vote? Yeah. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Motion carries 5-0 unanimously. Congratulations. Megan, do you want to take over or do you want me to finish? I think you still have to preside over it. Do I? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, then we'll move. Sorry. That's okay. We'll move the vice president then. Well, in turn, I would um like to nominate Craig. Um, I think that it would be really great to have Craig in the vice president role as

118um, mentorship and then also if there's anything I can't do, it feels like an easy fill in. So, I nominate very flexible schedule. Yeah, I will second that. Thank you, Bruce. Any other nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I I opposed. Okay, that's 5 Z. Next is clerk. I would look for nominations for I will nominate Bruce Fischer for clerk. Oh, for clerk. I'll I'll second that. Okay. And then Megan. Yes. Is that what it was? Kevin Hler. Okay. alphabetical. All right. Any other nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed? Motion carries. 5-0. Congratulations, Bruce. Uh, let's see. Treasurer. I would look for a nomination for forward treasurer. I would like to nominate Megan Chapman. I'm the only one left. No,

119unless you want to do it. Meredith is cap liver here, I guess. But really, if you want to do it wisely, wise, but I do but I concur with what um my nomination comes in part because of what Bruce said. I think you have picked up some leadership. You've been showing some leadership and um in the last few months. Yeah. So, no, we love to see that. I'm watch. Thank you. So, all those in favor, please. We have a second. Oh, I thought we had a second. I'm sorry. Thank you, Merida. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I I opposed. Motion carries 5. Congratulations, Megan Chapman. Now, we move on to committee liaison assignments. Um, Wisconsin Association of School Boards. The WB delegate receives regular legislative newsletters from

120the WSB, copies of new laws, and when deemed appropriate, conveys information about those items to the board in November. And and I will mention that I have been the delegate up to this point. So, in November, the delegate attends a one-day delegate workshop at which together with delegates from all over the state and the WASB policies and resolutions committee members, any policy changes and resolutions to be considered in the January convention are discussed and formulated. Before that meeting, the delegate should try to ascertain whether the local board has any concerns to be addressed. uh delegate also represents the board at the 3-day convention in Milwaukee. That's in midish to lateish January. Uh and carries to that meeting any direction for voting on the proposed resolutions which you will receive oh month or so I would

121think month and a half before the convention. Um resolutions that the board cares to give. Uh, I held this position for 2425 and Megan served as the alternate. Mhm. Um, you want to just switch? That's what I was going to propose. I could do that. Yeah, I can. And then I could help you with the the delegate stuff. Sure. Yep. So, you're proposing I would propose that uh Megan Bessler be installed as the uh the delegate and uh that I would serve as the alternate that okay I would second this is okay we don't have to I don't think we vote on this I think we just informal No good question Mhm. That's okay. You're a good rule follower. That's right. Okay. Next. Outstanding clerk. Uh, Village of McFarland. McFarland School Board joint planning committee.

122The school district of McFarland and Village of McFarland entered into a memorandum of understanding in February 2022 to formalize the joint planning committee work to discuss issues of mutual concern. The district shall annually appoint two members and one alternate from its governing board to serve on the joint committee along with the district administrator or his or her design. In the 2425 school year, this group generally were scheduled to meet every two to three months on the second Tuesday at 5:00 pm. Bruce Fischer and Megan Fesler held these positions with myself as the alternate. Um, does it anybody want to make any changes to that or Bruce and Megan? You're good with that? Well, didn't Mar there. I think there were if not the most flexible. No, I think I mean I think there were um

123several who are interested. So um I'm I I will give up my seat just because otherwise you have a quum. Yeah. Oh. Um yeah, I'm happy to give up my seat to someone who is interested. Are you interested, Meredith? Yes. So, we got Bruce. Um, Meredith. Uh, anybody else want to service the alternate? I can, but if someone else would like to do it, that would work. No. So, Bruce and Meredith, myself is the alternate. Mhm. That sound okay? Yep. All right. Uh, CISA 2 annual convention representative. The interest here was a little less than ideal. Yeah. And Tom did a great job. He did a great job doing that stuff. And it's that's not not an easy one. Uh, pursuant to section 116.021 021 C Wisconsin statutes and section 116.021A Wisconsin statutes. The board

124needs to appoint a school board member as its representative to the 2025 CISA convention which is scheduled for June 17th uh 2025 at 6:30 at the Whitewater CISA 2 Innovation Center. In addition, the CE CISA 2 Board of Control meets every third Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. alternating between virtual and in-person meetings held in Whitewater. For 2024, Tom Mooney served as the representative and Megan Chapman as alternate. Um, we need someone to be our representative. Is Tom no longer on the board? So, any volunteers? I just want to clarify one thing. In the description, it says that we need to appoint a school board member as its representative at the convention. Is it also required to go to the board of control meetings? I mean, it's kind of implied there, but I just want to uh

125it depends. You know, really, I mean, I think Tom used to attend the convention. I think he used to also attend the he would attend the meetings and it seemed to me that more than half of them actually ended up being virtual as opposed to running down to Whitewater. I don't recall, you know, him even mentioning doing that. Well, I know I can't do it June 17th. Same. [Music] Angie. Oh, I thought you had you wanted to make a suggestion. I think I can do the 17th. Um, so sure. Amazing. Way to go. Yes, it was just Yeah, let's do it. Um, the only thing that makes gives me pause is doing the white water every other Oh, the in person meeting. Yeah, that one. I I mean that if you don't make it, you

126don't make it. I don't think there's any penalty. Okay. It's not like we're going to be kicked out of CISA. Yell at you. U Megan Chapman, you're willing to stay as the alternate? I I I I technically have something on my calendar, but if if you really can't make it, let me know. All right. Calling all the babysitters. Yeah. So, we would be replacing Mr. Mooney with Meredith and Megan Chapman would remain as the alternate. Is that okay with everyone? Yes. Okay. Uh, Business and Education Partnership Council. The business and education partnership council oversees and directs the business and education partnership efforts in the district for the 2526 school year. The group plans to meet in person during the school during the school day during a school day in October, February, and April in the

127McFarland district office boardroom. Megan Chapman served as in this position in 2425 with Megan Fesler as alternate. What do you guys want to do there? I can keep doing it. I like doing it. Okay. U Megan, do you want to do the alternate? Sure. Okay. So, that one will remain unchanged. Now, we've got the employee relations committee. The McFarland employee relations committee serves as a means of representing uh McFarland School District professional and support staff regarding concerns, suggestions, and the overall satisfaction of the work environment. Its purpose is to allow representatives from each school within the district the opportunity to listen, respond, make recommendations, and act as a voice on behalf of the employees when meeting and conferring with the board and administration. We anticipate the 2526 employee relations committee meeting dates to be uh

128let's see 13th of November. How do I No, wait. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. 13th of November, 8th of January, 5th of March, and the 30th of April. Uh myself and Megan Chapman served as representatives to the employee relations committee with Megan Fesler's alternate. Um Megan, I I think you should probably be a representative in that one, don't we? I I I mean for the as president. Yeah. If you think I mean I I liked this committee. I am I'm interested in it, but um but I also think it's a good one for like it's a good way for schoolboard members to get a good pulse point on the district. That's true. So I am going to put you in as representative. You the two are two Megan's. Well, does Meredith have any interest in being on

129it? Yeah, I would. It is a good Yeah, like it's like it's a good basically. Yeah, that's what I felt like. So, so give me those again, Craig. We want to do uh Megan Fesler taking my place. Okay. and Megan Chapman. Meredith. Meredith. Oh, Chapman. Yes. Meredith. And because it I mean it doesn't have to be. Just so you know, it doesn't have to be Fesler. Yeah. I don't I think it doesn't have to be. I think based on my based on serving on it before um it didn't I mean I can see your point Craig where it would be helpful or it could be helpful but I think if other people are more interested then I I think that would be okay. I could serve as alternate that'd be fine too if you wanted

130to do it. Yeah I can do Chapman. Yeah. So, Chapman and Meredith with Festler as the alternate. Is that what we're saying? Yep. Okay. Got it, Angie? Okay. Uh, Wisconsin virtual academyy's representative. Uh, the WVA representative attends the Four Lakes Board of Education virtual meetings at 11:00 a.m. on the third Thursday of each month. They also attend a fall and spring retreat commonly held in Green Bay in December and May. The upcoming spring retreat scheduled for May 7th and 8th. Tom Mooney served as the Wea Destinations Career Academy and Insight School of Wisconsin rep for 2425. So obviously we need another Just so you know, if you can't make the retreat this week, that's fine and understandable. You're not a voting member of the group, correct? You're just a So, I will say I unfortunately

131I have like a can't move meeting the third Thursday of every month. So, and it's literally at 10:30. Bruce, you want it? Yeah. Craig, I was wondering if you'd want to do that with me. Sure. So, Fisher as the main and Yes. And and out race the alternate. Mhm. That all right? Yes. Okay. The WEA five-year review representatives. Uh myself and Bruce agreed to serve as the WEA review representatives for the last review which occurred in 2021 2022 for the 2023 to 2028 contract. Two representatives will be appointed in May 2025 for the next review process. What does that mean? So what's it all involved? So the you can you can say something but the I mean the the board the board member role is very minimal in that process. It's more that you're informed

132of the process. You can ask questions about the review process but the work is really largely done um administratively. Yep. So with Dr. Cutler and myself going through the documents, the contract, what's worked, what has not worked, and then all of that leads up to a document about changes for the future that informs the contract, the next fiveyear contract, I think actually with Scott Brown. Yeah. And when Yeah. So Craig to me, why don't we just keep us together? Sure. You know that feels get both of those. That all right with everyone works. Okay. Status quo makes sense. Legislative liaison. The legislative liaison keeps apprised of pending legislation legislation and serves as a point of contact with federal, state, and or local legislators to communicate in information on McFarland School District goals and needs. Uh

133Megan Chapman served in this role in 2425 and I would assume that Megan Chapman No, I don't want it at all. Should probably have to do that again this year. 25 26. Yes, I will do it. All right. Thank you. Do we have an alternate? Going really. Do we do an alternate for that? I don't There is no alternate. Okay. No one could. I know. Very well. Yeah. Because there's no like it's not Yeah. The Greater Dane County School District Governance Consortium representatives. The McFarland School Board voted to join the Greater Dayne County School District Governance Consortium in July 2024. For 2024 and 25, meetings were scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in various Dane County District locations in the months of October, December, January, and May. for 2425 I served as the or Megan and I

134served as representatives on this uh consortium. So what should we do with that one? Do you have any suggestions Mr. Turner? Is it m is it going to continue on? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think we've really focused on school funding. Yeah. As of late. I think it could broaden at some point, but that seems to be the the focus of the group. Um Megan Fesler and I served on that one. Does anybody else want to in some ways I think it makes sense if you guys are president and vice president? I don't know. I'm happy to do it if no one else is. I'm happy to too. The only um my only question if we want to do an alternate or something else is that because it's been so focused on legislative stuff.

135I wondered if Chapman would be Well, because I said in the I went to the last one. Yeah. Um but I know that Meredith also put on here that you were in. Oh, yes. Right. Right. And I I mean I'm more than happy to do it. It's it's for me like a lot of the information that's talked about like I'm already aware of it. Um but like I said I can still do it. How about but what about Meredith? Well, we can do an alternate too. There's not one on here but I don't think there's anything keeping us from doing it. And I'd be glad to not glad to but I'd be willing to give that up if someone else was interested as long as festival. Why don't we do that? Why don't we have

136Megan Chapman and Meredith Huie as the two if you had something you're interested? We can carpool. It is. That's carpool. And it is your We only live like a block and a half. Meredith and Chapman. Yes. There is a meeting this week as we talked about. Yep. I'm already going. I was already planning on going. Oh, you were? No, because I have a commitment. Yeah. Okay. So, you are going to go Meganler. Fesler. Um, yes. So those will be the two. So and then just have Fesler as an alternate. Sure. Okay. Yep. I like that idea. So So have an alternate. So we always have people there. Huie. Good with that. We're one of the few five people boards. So yeah, it's good. We have at least two. All right. You got it, Angie? I

137do. There's only one thing left to do then. I would look for a motion to adjurnn. Go ahead. I will make that motion to adjurnn. That's that's nice. Whoever sits there, you should actually I was going to say early. No, she's going to second it. I just know I can. Meredith is going to second feel it. I'll second. Okay. But going forward, you have to do it. I have to make the motion. It's that chair. It is. It's the new board member. Shout out to All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries. 5-0. And we are adjourned at 912. Hardy 20 minutes in front of our district administrator. Sure did. It's a hard meeting. It is a Thank you for the camaraderie on figuring out. Yeah.